Who could possibly resist an invitation to return to Sonoma County and visit the great people at Blackstone Winery? Join us for a tour, an interview with Blackstone’s winemaker Dennis Hill, and a look at some of the interesting things to see and do in the surrounding area.

A five-hour flight and another two-hour drive brought us to an unmistakable stretch of hilly Sonoma County backdropped by groves of trees, orchards, and mountains. By the golden-leafed grape plants, standing like rows of patient cloud-watchers, we knew we were back at Blackstone Winery.

Founded in 1990 by brothers Derek and Courtney Benham, Blackstone made a name for itself by specializing in some of the finest Merlot. Over the years — and especially since its move to Sonoma in 2002 — the winery has expanded in all the right ways, bringing the best of California’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Zinfandel, and Pinot Noir — in addition to Merlot — to wine racks at reasonable prices. But where does a winery go from there? What’s next for Blackstone? That’s what we came to find out.

In Blackstone’s ivy-covered guest cottage, we met Blackstone’s winemaker, Dennis Hill. As he told us about his passion for wine, he poured glasses of his latest love affair, Sonoma County Chardonnay, a new Blackstone offering. Buttressing the Chardonnay’s smooth taste of flowers, apples, and tropical fruits, we picked up a welcomed mineral freshness that we hadn’t quite experienced before in a wine. Hill explained he blended the wine from seven or eight vineyards from across Sonoma Valley, making it a testament to the company’s reason for opening a branch here in the first place.

Air from the Pacific Ocean gives Sonoma Valley mild springs and winters and cool summers, creating conditions not unlike the Mediterranean. This means fruits that produce a layering of flavors unique to other wine regions of California.

“We now have the ability to do some riskier wine making to really bring forward the flavors and characters of a more limited region,” says Hill. “And as we try to maximize the flavor diversity, we also keep the wine consistent from year to year and bottle to bottle, which is one of the things that keeps Blackstone popular.”

Hill went on to explain another advantage of Blackstone’s new location: more reserves. Blackstone has long produced a Merlot reserve from Napa Valley, but now it’s added others to the mix: Santa Lucia Highlands Reserve Chardonnay, Santa Lucia Highlands Reserve Pinot Noir, Dry Creek Valley Reserve Zinfandel, and Dry Creek Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.

To see how he achieves these flavors, Hill took us on a tour of the grounds. He showed off the winery’s latest equipment for sorting, de-stemming, and crushing the fruit after harvest. Then it was on to the fermentation tanks. We walked over these massive cylinders as the crushed fruit inside them churned underneath us. Grapes are pumped back and forth through pipes and sprays a couple of times a day to get flavor out of the skins. But it’s the aging that brings a Blackstone wine into its own — a process that can take anywhere from 18 to 24 months in the barrel room with the rich smell of toasted wood and fumes of evaporated wine (which winemakers call “the angel’s share”).

Once done, the wines made here go to the market as the dynamic blends that have given the winery its impeccable reputation. Between its Winemaker Select series, its Prestige Appellation (a step up in complexity), and its Reserve line, Blackstone offers something for everyone. Its sales have climbed into the neighborhood of 400,000 barrels a year, and it looks to export to Europe in the coming years. Blackstone plans to achieve this continued growth by sticking to the same approach it has for years: giving the consumers what they want.